The Madison-Monday Morning Report
7-14-25
Senator Rachel Cabral-Guevara
NOTE: Representative Lindee Brill also reached out to discuss her vote on the budget.
As I mentioned in Friday’s blast, Senator Cabral-Guevara reached out to me to discuss the reasons why she voted yes on the $115 Billion budget. I promised I would publish her talking points as presented. In my analogy last week, I talked about how justifying the yes vote was akin to paying $72,000 for a beat-up Ford Focus but bragging that it had a full-sized spare and some other decent features. It still doesn’t add up to a good deal. To me it doesn’t matter what the starting point was. It’s where we end up that matters. Spending increased by $15 BILLION and there is no justification for it. None.
Having that said, the WCD gives a huge shout-out to the senator for taking the heat. She knows that our readers take no prisoners, but she felt compelled to offer some alternative perspective all the same. I’m not impressed with most of the budget, but I will say that it looks like childcare took a big step in the right direction. I will discuss those changes below.
NOTE: School funding, both at the K12 and UW system levels, has always been a sore spot with conservatives. The UW system’s budget is bloated beyond words, and no latter what they say, they will still use programs to promote DEI, Intersectionalism, and all the other WOKE nonsense. Who will stop them? Evers? Josh Kaul? The Wisconsin Supreme Court? Keep Dreaming. And the K12 system is even worse. The thirst for more taxpayer dollars is endless at the K12 level. Even when the state provides enough funding to lower property tax, schools just go to referendum, spending a fortune on glossy flyers explaining the need for more money so that the “children” receive all kinds of advantages. They will tout how taxes won’t be affected (but they’ll fail to tell you that your property taxes WOULD HAVE gone down due to the increase in state spending). Senator Stroebel and Representative Brandtjen had a series of referendum reforms but were told that Cindy Duchow would not vote the measures out of committee. The measures got no support for Speaker Vos or Governor Walker. Anyway, MPS is posed to get over $25,000 per student per year and there will still be schools in the MPS system that have NOT ONE student reading or doing math at proficiency. All of those students will be promoted to the next grade level.
Here are Senator Cabral-Guevara’s points:
Taxes
The governor wanted a $2.7 billion tax hike, but this budget cut taxes by $1.5 billion. The governor vetoed similar proposals last session.
The two biggest ticket items are:
A broad income tax cut (expanding the second bracket), coming in around $643 million.
A retirement tax exemption up to $48,000 per couple filing jointly around $695 million.
The state took too much of your money, and I committed to returning much of that to you. This includes both general income tax cuts and a retiree income tax exemption, which I led the fight on last session. It will exempt the first $48,000 of income for retired couples filing jointly.
Fiscal Impact
With this budget, I would have preferred we had enough members to pass a budget on our own. However, we still have a sound ending balance of $780 million by the end of this budget and very likely a much higher surplus with even modest growth.
We still cut taxes, slashed the governor’s proposed budget increase by over half, and got very important policy wins out of it as well.
UW Funding
On UW funding, these investments come with conditions (which conservatives have advocated for) that cap university hiring paid for with taxes and fees, require credits to be transferred and accepted across UW campuses by fall 2026, mandate a minimum teaching workload for faculty, and require a study on the feasibility of the future of the system.
The governor originally had proposed $2.7 billion in higher taxes, changing references to mothers in our statute to “inseminated persons,” and billions more to expand welfare. All of that was stripped from the final budget proposal, restoring sanity to the budget process.
We also slashed over 300 state positions from the base, reversing the governor’s desire to bloat government even more with 800 new bureaucrats.
This budget also included additional funding to care for people at home, aiding the long-term care shortage in rural areas. Independent living centers and home care nurses received additional support in this budget, which I fought for due to shortages in assisted living and other long-term care solutions in our local communities. Private duty nurses, who provide care to patients at home rather than high-cost hospital or nursing home settings, received $3.8 million for reimbursement increases.
Notes:
Roughly two-thirds of our state bank account (GPR) increase comes from:
The cost to simply continue the services we provide to our Medicaid recipients and other Health Services programs.
The Department of Corrections to make sure we are keeping offenders locked up, making sure we have enough space to hold them, and paying for prison guards.
And yes, schools received about a 2% increase on average over the next two years. However, per student aids (per pupil aids) were cut by ~$8 million in FY 25 and ~$13 million in FY 2026. The biggest increase in aid was for special education ($500m), which will be a huge budget net positive for our rural school districts for the students they are required to educate. We also gave a $0 increase for general school aids, while the governor wanted billions more. We also secured additional per-pupil increases for choice and charter schools:
Choice: K-8 pupils is estimated to increase from $10,237 in 2024-25 to $10,877 in 2025-26 and $11,305 in 2026-27, and the per pupil payment for 9-12 pupils is estimated to increase from $12,731 in 2024-25 to $13,371 in 2025-26 and $13,799 in 2026-27.
Charter: $11,729 in 2024-25 to $12,369 in 2025-26 and $12,797 in 2026-27.
Childcare
Boosted the maximum number of childcare workers: infants (up to 18 months) ratio to 1:4
Boosted the maximum number of childcare workers: children (between 18 months to 2 ½ years) to 1:7
Requires DCF to establish a category of licensed childcare centers that provide care and supervision for four to 12 children (“large family childcare centers”), as follows. Require DCF to regulate a large family child care center in the same way that it regulates a center that is licensed to provide care and supervision for four to eight children, including the maximum number of children per provider, except: (a) DCF must prohibit more than two providers providing care and supervision for children at one time; and (b) DCF may regulate a large family child care center differently than a child care center that provides care and supervision for five to eight children to the extent necessary to safely accommodate a larger group of children. Modify the administrative code to specify that the Commercial Building Code does not apply to a one- or two-family dwelling in which a public or private day care center for twelve or fewer children is located (rather than eight or fewer children, as under current regulations).
Lowered the assistant care teaching age to 16 (from 18)
Sometime between 2005 and 2010 a child was burned while at childcare facility (if my memory serves me) and of course the knee-jerk solution was to regulate childcare, and if you didn’t go along, you hated children (the nonsense was just as prevalent back then). There are two things that all staffers and newly elected legislators learn right away.
1. Prepare to legislate down to the lowest common denominator.
2. Programs like government funded daycare start out as a cause, become a business, and then turn into a racket. And he we are.
The changes above are a nice start
State Representative Joy Goeben has been on the front lines pushing back on the fiscal assault on the childcare industry. Could it be that the globalists (I generally don’t use that term) wish to make providing childcare unprofitable to the point where the government has to take over? It is my understanding the Goeben has introduced a series of common-sense bills to address the government intrusion. Many of those reforms are included in the budget.
Read her press release below:
Needless to say, the WCD still believes that the $115 Billion budget passed by both houses of the “Republican” led legisiature is a fleecing of the Wisconsin taxpayer.
Hearings –
Note: If there is something that we feel is a must-know item that is receiving a hearing we will point that out. Otherwise, simply follow the links provided.
There are three kinds of hearings.
1. A public hearing where the public is allowed to address bills that are being heard. The bill authors generally go first to answer questions from the committee. Lobbyists and “experts” give their thoughts as well.
2. Executive sessions are where the members of the committee vote on passage. Generally, no testimony is given during an executive session, but last-minute amendments might require explanation and clarification from the Legislative Council (lawyers who provide legal interpretations of the bill’s language).
3. Informational hearings are hearings where invited speakers give their thoughts on topics that they are familiar with. Generally, testimony is limited to invited speakers.
Monday – No hearings scheduled.
Tuesday – No hearings scheduled.
Wednesday – No hearings scheduled.
Thursday – No hearings scheduled.
Friday – No hearings scheduled.
NOTE: It would not be feasible to discuss every bill being heard every week. If you have a particular bill you’re following, please look at the committee schedule - View the entire committee hearing schedule here - You will need to enter the current date.
Links to Savagespeaks Tutorials and other Information.
Know how to do your research – The links below contain valuable information.
Notification Service – Viewing a Bill history - Researching Budgets
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Monday Count Bill/Kevin Petersen -14 Week Abortion Bill - Wedding Barn Fiasco - Monday Count Bill Revisited - The 2020 election Revisited - Meagan Wolfe Has to Go
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Bill Savage is a former Chief of Staff at the Wisconsin State Capitol. Current editor of the Wisconsin Conservative Digest and author of Savagespeaks.Substack.com.